


Weighted

by kalijean



Series: Arch to the Sky [55]
Category: due South
Genre: Arch to the Sky, Chicago (1998), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-11
Updated: 2011-09-11
Packaged: 2017-10-23 15:42:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalijean/pseuds/kalijean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>April 1998: Turnbull takes notice of Vecchio struggling and thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weighted

In truth, Turnbull felt no hole where Benton Fraser should be.

The goodbye, such as it was, had been tearful on his part. They were courtesy tears; Turnbull was capable of them. They weren't fake. He felt each one. Simply... surface. No different from his duty smile or his sentry freeze. To be in the presence of a true outpouring of grief from Renfield Turnbull meant that one was either exceptionally trusted or that one had beaten him down so badly as to make him unaware he was crying.

There was no real sense of loss for a man who had been his hero for some time. Neither did Turnbull think for a moment there was any hole in Benton Fraser's life, now. Fraser and Ray Kowalski. An adventure. A departure made with affection and good wishes. Perhaps other things left in its wake.

It seemed to Turnbull that the only gap in their little universe connected by Benton Fraser existed somewhere on the other side of Ray Vecchio's desk.

Turnbull tried not to think about what it felt like to lose your entire life twice.

Coffee had been a simple matter; it cost him no part of himself to offer a small kindness. Maybe that was what caught him. Staring into a black cup of coffee, trying to remember how Ray _Vecchio_ took it. Turnbull wondered if anyone else would remember.

It stuck in him. The imbalance of it; that everyone who had lived in the light of Benton Fraser should seem to find a place to suit them save the man who came first.

It was as though the world had come to loot the life of Ray Vecchio; it took his name, his partner, his car, and even apparently his health. Whatever stitches he'd used to repair the hole had clearly burst.

Turnbull shouldn't know those things. He should not have observed as much as he had. As much as Turnbull insisted to himself that Ray Vecchio's coffee or indeed coping was none of his business, it appeared that a simple matter of coffee cost him more than he might've guessed.

There seemed no way to balance the scales. It was an odd thought to have for someone Turnbull knew only in passing; it wasn't like he _cared_.

Then again, it wasn't as though Detective Vecchio had cared for _him_ when he'd seen his way to the kindness of brushing off those spitballs so long ago.

One cup of coffee in exchange for a few paper specks. It was a fair trade, wasn't it?

No. No, the imbalance stuck in him, and with the memory of that exhausted man behind his desk, it wouldn't leave.


End file.
